This Is Our Warhammer Journey

“I’m done on my end.”

Garna suddenly appeared, casually greeting the staff along the way without caring whether they responded, then tossed a storage card to Romulus.

“The whole ship—11,409 people. A lot less than the Imperial Navy. Most of the facilities, including the macro cannons, are automated systems operated by cogitators for data processing and Gun-Priests for control.”

Garna clearly felt that his investigation of the ship’s environment had gone unusually smoothly, as if the ship itself was cooperating with him.

“Knew it.”

Romulus looked at the detailed data, wearing a “just as expected” expression.

The Imperium doesn’t avoid automation out of fear of Chaos corruption—they just don’t treat people like people. The gearheads have ships with only one-tenth the crew of an Imperial equivalent, yet they’re still fully combat-effective. And it’s not like gearhead ships get Chaos-rushed more than usual.

Even though it’s still necessary to be cautious of AI and potential Chaos corruption, the internal structure of the Adeptus Mechanicus gave Romulus a psychological threshold he could accept.

Yeah, from now on, we’ll follow the Mechanicus’ automation model. After all, they’ve got plenty of flesh-and-blood operators to serve as control nodes—no need to turn real people into cogitators or servitors anymore.

“Stop mumbling about problems. Say something nice. Like, what did you get out of it?”

Garna keenly noticed Romulus’ mood and took the initiative to speak.

“Oh right, here’s the blueprint I just unlocked. See if there’s anything useful.”

He tapped on his panel and shared his info.

“This is...”

Romulus scanned the newly added blueprints in the production line module, visibly surprised.

Various bolter weapon production lines, an Indomitus Terminator production line, and a bunch of garbled data—but the notes labeled it as “Armor of Fate.”

“How’d you get this?”

Romulus hadn’t even let Arthur scan the production lines while disarming the area, just to avoid triggering Cawl.

So how’d the Angel manage to map the lines?

And Cawl’s wild for this—he straight-up swapped the production lines from the back of the Ark to gear up the Devouring Sharks. The guy’s not taking any chances.

“I’ve got two pairs of eyes.”

Garna smiled and pointed at his own head.

“Black Rage, you know? Getting a bit too handsy is totally justifiable.”

“Nice.”

Romulus gave a thumbs-up.

Looks like they won’t need to blow money on ammo anymore.

As for the Indomitus Terminators, while not as good performance-wise as Ironclads or the Perdition variant, they still fit modern Astartes combat style really well. As long as they’re not using soul materialization, the more the better.

“What’s up with the garbled part?”

“Data redundancy, or maybe it hasn’t resolved yet. Common when unlocking blueprints in the Warp. I usually clean them up before sharing.”

Rameses, still pre-setting a project, replied.

“You can split the complete components through sorting.”

He worked on the panel for a bit, and soon extracted a mini energy motor and a new material structure.

“So what’s the use?”

Romulus asked.

“Maybe they can be added to the power armor’s energy system?”

Rameses muttered, half-thinking.

“Who’s gonna do the modding?”

Garna hit them with a soul-level question.

“...”

The three stared at each other.

None of them knew how to work with machinery—even before transmigrating, none of them had a mechanical background.

As for the Warp data they’d gathered—well, knowing something and being able to use it are two different things.

“Looks like we’re still missing someone specialized in mechanics on our team.”

Romulus started wondering if he should go capture a gearhead to help them out. Maybe Cawl had a connection or two.

He added it to his work log, then turned to Rameses and asked,

“Did you finish your lightning-forged divine weapon?”

Romulus hadn’t forgotten his idea to have the Emperor learn from the Four and try daemon possession too. That way, they could drastically boost their military strength in a short time.

“I’ve got an idea, but it’s still missing something compared to the daemon rituals. I mean, daemons can be stuffed in just fine, but Old Man E’s stuff doesn’t work.”

“My guess is it’s an issue with faith anchors, but I’ve got no shrine world to test it out. And the guy won’t speak in plain language, so I’m basically playing guessing games—still, I’ll keep calling. One way or another, I’m gonna filter out the personality fragment in Old Man E that can actually communicate.”

Rameses compiled the data from this mission’s daemon-host manipulation and added it to the batch.

He was actually pretty pleased—after all, roping in Cawl had changed a previously fixed fact and earned him a massive research grant.

Sure, Romulus had already allocated him a decent share, but when it comes to burning money, the more the merrier, right?

He added,

“Lately I’ve been getting some scattered responses. A lot of it’s incoherent rambling, or stuff like ‘I am not a god,’ but hey, progress is progress.”

Ever since the Emperor mooched off them, Rameses had been tossing him psychic calls whenever he had a free moment, just to test how senile the Emperor had become.

And it was showing results.

Not like the Emperor could find them anyway—the transmigrators didn’t even know what the hell they were anymore. Their psychic projections and Warp safe houses were just shadows, not their true forms. Even the Sisters around them couldn’t snoop on them properly.

“You’re like Old Man E’s deadbeat dad at this point.”

Romulus couldn’t help himself when he heard that.

“Don’t. We’re paying out of pocket to work for him, can’t even get through to him on the phone, and all he does is send some flashy VFX bullsh*t. Clients like this deserve a golden toilet.”

Rameses muttered, showing zero sympathy.

“My prank calls are doing him a favor at this point.”

Romulus rubbed his forehead. Bro’s got a point.

“Looking at it this way, we’ve still got a lot of problems. With more blueprints stacking up, our lack of technical skills is starting to become a real bottleneck for putting this stuff to use.”

“And then there’s Old Man E not talking like a human except during divine visions, which leaves us stuck with not enough combat personnel.”

But honestly, none of these issues were unsolvable.

Find a place, farm for a few decades—you’d basically have everything. By then, they’d definitely have the manpower to fully utilize all the gear they’ve got.

“But it’s not like we’ve come up empty-handed.”

Rameses said, “Compared to when we were just drifting through space, now we’ve got a ship. And enough psychic power to arm the whole coalition.”

“Yeah, a ship of our own.”

Arthur silently walked up beside them.

He tossed a saved-up holographic map to Romulus. It marked out the cleared safe zones and even included probe locations left there specifically for Cawl to spy on.

Rameses glanced at the two guys who had just taken turns chiming in, and to fit in, he packaged up his own experiment report and sent it over too.

“......”

Romulus couldn’t help but fall silent, but he accepted it readily and gave it a top slot in the work log module.

What else could he do? Just keep going. His companions trusted him this much—he was more than happy about it.

“But the process has been anything but easy. We’ve been transmigrated for a few months now, crossed two star systems, and all we’ve done is fight.”

Romulus let out a sigh at the thought.

Searching for technical talent, building up combat units, researching their true nature—none of this was something that could be done overnight. And yet, everyone had to spend all their time fighting.

“If nothing goes wrong, we’ll be fighting in the next star system too. And it’s only going to get bigger.”

Romulus really just wanted to find a place to settle down and develop, farm for a while. This rhythm of fighting everywhere they went was driving him nuts.

Even though their souls kept growing, the blueprints kept unlocking, and their power was steadily increasing, it still didn’t bring much of a sense of security.

Compared to the endless wars they faced, these gains felt like illusions. And because of those very wars, they couldn’t even bring their full potential to bear.

The pressure was real.

The sight beneath the ship was burned into his memory. Romulus felt a growing urgency—an urge to change things, not to keep fighting one battle after another.

“Sigh~”

He couldn’t help but let out another sigh.

What else could he say? It was the 40K universe—war was the default setting.

“Then why not think of battles as little pit stops during your interstellar journey? The Imperium may suck, but meeting heroes from all walks of life is still pretty fun.”

Garna said cheerfully.

He’d noticed Romulus had clearly seen something recently—his mental state had been gradually slipping.

“And the meaning of our battles is to win with them.”

Arthur followed up: “This galaxy is full of malice. If we want to change it—if we want to survive—we have to win.”

“Only by winning now can we carve out the future!”

“Yeah, we have to win.”

Romulus looked up at the stars.

No matter what they wanted to do in the future, they’d have to keep winning.

Win, and everything was negotiable.

Lose, and this tiny spark they carried would be nothing more than a flash in the pan.

“Don’t put so much pressure on yourself.”

Garna chuckled.

What was Romulus thinking about now?

And Arthur too. The rest of them were trying to lighten the mood, and this guy’s still going on about winning and fighting like it’s a motivational speech.

“You handle the strategies, Rameses will build up the knowledge base, and we’ll take care of charging into battle. Just like each of us has our own strengths—as long as we all do our part, that’s enough.”

“You guys plan the path to success, and we’ll walk that path all the way to the end.”

After saying that, he gave Arthur an elbow jab.

“Trust us.”

Arthur, elbowed by Garna, extended his hand.

“And just like you trust us, trust yourself too.”

Rameses also found a moment to step over and patted Romulus on the shoulder with a smile.

Romulus looked at his companions, silent for a moment. Then the corners of his mouth lifted into a relaxed smile.

“......Are you guys seriously PUA-ing me right now?”

“How else do you think I’m gonna get my research funding?”

Rameses replied with a cheeky grin.

“Lord Romulus, give the order.”

Romulus couldn’t hold back a laugh, then reached out his hand.

“Alright then—”

The four of them stacked their hands together at that moment.

“Let’s win one more time—together!”